1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a soldering iron and a method of manufacturing the soldering iron.
2. Description of Related Art
Soldering iron tips have been provided in which a thermally conductive material is formed in the shape of a cone with a heater being housed therein (refer to Japanese Unexamined Application, First Publication No. 2004-17060). The heater generally includes a comparatively high-resistance wire wound into the shape of a coil.
In recent surface-mount technology involving the soldering of extremely small LSIs and the like onto a substrate, parts to be soldered and parts not to be fused are disposed together within very close proximity. For this reason, there have been proposed soldering irons constructed to be extremely small (hereafter, an “extremely small soldering iron”) so that the soldering tip thereof can suitably reach within a very small region when performing such soldering. The inside of such an extremely small soldering iron is constituted similarly to an ordinary size soldering iron. To wit, built in the extremely small soldering iron as well is a heater formed by wire material having resistance wound into the shape of a coil.
Since the soldering tip itself of the aforementioned extremely small soldering iron is constituted to be very small, the spacing between adjacent portions of the coiled wire material in the heater is considerably smaller than in an ordinary size soldering iron. For that reason, there has been the problem of adjacent wires electrically shorting or breaking by contact. Moreover, increasing the spacing between adjacent turns of the coiled wire gives rise to the problem of heat being transmitted to the grip portion of the soldering iron.